Matthew Nolan

Nolan's death has two stories. The Handbook of Texas says he was talking outside his home on the night of December 22, 1864, with the horse trader J. C. McDonald when two stepsons of the former sheriff H. W. Barry, Frank and Charles Gravis, arrived, argued, and one of them shot him. Barry was supplying cotton to Union ships, and Nolan had been told to arrest such men as renegades. Other sources hold that Nolan was arresting McDonald, and that the brothers, aiming at McDonald, shot Nolan by accident.

What the plaque says

Matthew Nolan After the death of their parents, Mary Nolan arrived in Corpus Christi in 1845 at the age of sixteen along with her two brothers, Matt, eleven, and Tom, nine. Mary became a nurse in the United States Army, allowing Matt to serve as a bugler and Tom as a drummer boy. The siblings were attached to the 2nd Dragoons throughout the Mexican-American War in all major engagements from Palo Alto to Mexico City. After the war, the three returned to Corpus Christi where Mary, shortly after, married a soldier and moved to Galveston. In 1850, Matt joined the Texas Rangers under "Rip" Ford. While still connected with the Rangers, Matt became Sheriff of Nueces County in 1858. Tragedy struck in August 1860, when Tom, Matt's deputy, died of a gunshot wound he suffered while making an arrest. On September 14, 1861, at Fort Brown in Brownsville, Matt mustered into the 2nd Regiment Texas Mounted Cavalry commanded by "Rip" Ford. Nolan returned to Corpus Christi in May of 1862, to marry Margaret McMahan. Soon after, Nolan headed east for Galveston and participated in the capture of the Federal vessel Morning Light. Following the Union capture of Fort Semmes which guarded Aransas Pass, Nolan commanded one of two companies stationed outside of Corpus Christi. In 1864, now a major in the Confederate Army, Nolan entered a second stint as Nueces County Sheriff. While he was escorting John C. McDonald, brothers Frank and Charles Gravis murdered Nolan and McDonald in broad daylight on December 22, 1864. Matthew Nolan played a conspicuous role in Texas during turbulent years and is buried here at Old Bayview Cemetery next to his beloved brother. (2018)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mirador de la Flor — 0.6 mi
  Corpus Christi's bayfront memorial to Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, the Tejano singer from this city, killed in 1995 at twenty-three, visited by about thirty thousand people a year.
• Art Museum of South Texas — 0.7 mi
  Philip Johnson's 1972 museum on the Corpus Christi bayfront, joined in 2006 by Ricardo Legorreta's Miller Wing, holding more than 2,000 works mostly from Texas and the Americas.
• Texas State Aquarium — 1.0 mi
  A nonprofit aquarium on the tip of Corpus Christi Beach built around the Gulf and the Caribbean, with the largest coastal wildlife rescue center in Texas behind the exhibits.
• USS Lexington Museum on the Bay — 1.1 mi
  An Essex-class carrier of 1943 moored off North Beach, the Blue Ghost that Tokyo Rose kept reporting sunk, and the Navy's training carrier for nearly three decades after.

More markers nearby

• Eli Todd Merriman — steps away
• William DeRyee — steps away
• Thomas S. Parker — steps away
• James Downing — steps away